By Mehmet Oz, MD
O, The Oprah Magazine | January 18, 2010

Oprah's resident MD shares his most effective tips for reducing stress.

1. TAKE MORE RESTROOM BREAKS

There's a reason it's called the restroom: It's the one place—at work or at home—where no one will bother you. If you're overwhelmed, steal away for a five-minute meditation break. Inhale deeply into your belly and try to focus on your breathing. You'll emerge calmer, and maybe even more productive. Research shows that meditation can improve your ability to concentrate.

2. SHOW UP FIVE MINUTES EARLY

Everyone knows the feeling: You're running late, stuck in traffic, glancing at your watch every 30 seconds in frustration. Give yourself extra time to get wherever you need to go. Being an early bird will kill stress by giving you more control over your day and your commitments.

3. CHANGE YOUR STRESS EATING

The best stress-quashing foods are made by Mother Nature, not Baskin-Robbins. Berries are naturally rich in vitamin C, which helps fight increased levels of cortisol, a stress hormone. A handful of pistachios can lower your blood pressure, which means less of a spike when you get that next rush of adrenaline.

4. AND QUIT STRESS DRINKING

Yes, a few cocktails can relax you, but alcohol also prevents your brain from entering stages of deep sleep. And sleep and stress are bound together: Chronic stress can keep you up at night, and a lack of sleep can also lead to further stress. Limit yourself to no more than one drink a night.

5. GET YOUR HEART PUMPING

Stress makes your body spew out two hormones: cortisol and adrenaline. These chemicals put your body into fight-or-flight mode, ratcheting up your energy level and causing your heart to pound and your muscles to tense. Exercise gives you an outlet to release some of that tension. A good workout also increases your levels of "feel-good" chemicals called endorphins.

6. MAKE IT A COMEDY NIGHT

Researchers say that merely anticipating a laugh can jump-start healthy changes in the body by reducing levels of stress hormones, which have been linked to conditions like obesity, heart disease, and memory impairment, to name just a few.

7. ENJOY THE COMPANY OF FRIENDS

Socializing releases oxytocin, a chemical that can help combat stress hormones and lower your blood pressure. Whether it's spending time with dog lovers, book club buddies, or siblings—whatever group you like—just knowing you're not alone can go a long way toward coping with stress.

Hungry after some late night clubbing? Healthier guilty pleasure at IHOP!

Hungry after clubbing, but don't wanna risk losing those abs you have been working on for the summer? Try these healthier options available at IHOP and a few other late-night eateries.

Guilty Pleasure at IHOP
Stuffed French Toast
560 calories
8 g saturated fat
315 mg sodium

The stuffing? Sweet cream cheese. The toast? Cinnamon raisin. Top it with strawberry and a small shot of whipped cream. One caveat: Don't make it a "combo." The eggs, hash browns, and bacon will ratchet it up to 1,200 calories.

Guilty Pleasure at McDonald's

Snack Size Fruit & Walnut Salad

210 calories

8 g fat (1.5 g saturated)

25 g sugars

This thing make a pretty stellar dessert on the fly. It comes with apple slices and grapes, low-fat yogurt, and candied walnuts for a great mix of protein, fat, and fiber.

Guilty Pleasure at Jack in the Box
Grilled Chicken Strips (4) with Zesty Marinara Sauce
195 calories
2 g fat (0.5 g saturated)
900 mg sodium

This nonfried finger food isn't on the sides menu, but order it anyway to avoid a glut of trans fat. These chicken strips are loaded with 37 grams of protein, so your belly will stay full long after you stop eating. That's a claim French fries can't make.

What Are the Symptoms of Male Breast Cancer?

Q: Can a man have breast cancer? If so, what are the symptoms? How do I know if I have breast cancer?

From Dr. Martee L. Hensley:

Breast cancer is rare in men — about 2,000 cases of male breast cancer are diagnosed in the United States annually. Because this cancer is so rare, screening all men with mammograms (special X-rays of the breast) is not recommended. However, men can still do a physical exam to try to detect lumps. It's actually easier for men to find small breast lumps this way because they have much less breast tissue than women. These breast cancer–related lumps are generally quite firm and might be difficult to move (they may feel "fixed" to the skin or to the muscle and other tissue beneath them). If the cancer is more advanced, the skin on top of the lump may appear red or irritated. Generally, a breast cancer lump is not painful.

If you have found a new lump in your breast, a physician should examine you to determine whether the lump is suspicious. Your doctor will need to know whether you have a family history of cancer on either your mother's or your father's side, and whether you have siblings or other blood relatives who have cancer. He or she will also want to know whether you have had significant exposure to radiation in the past, and whether you take medicines, such as estrogens or antiandrogens, that can affect male hormone levels. If you are found to have a suspicious lump, your doctor may order a mammogram, a breast sonogram, and possibly a biopsy to determine whether the lump is malignant (cancerous).

8 Ways To Cut Carbs

Your guide to getting (and staying) in the fat–burning zone

More of us would become citizens of Low-Carb Nation if it weren't for the daunting loyalty oath. After all, studies show that men who eat less than 100 grams of carbohydrates a day lose four more pounds of fat per month than guys with higher intakes. But renouncing allegiance to such potentates as bagels, pasta, and potatoes can be tough.

"The best way to cut carbs is to make creative substitutions," says Arthur Agatston, M.D., author of The South Beach Diet. "That way you can eat the foods you love without busting your diet."

Dr. Agatston told us how to make cauliflower taste like mashed potatoes. Other nutrition experts gave us tricks for replacing white flour, pasta, and potatoes with lower-carb alternatives that taste nearly identical. The result: 12 tasty carbohydrate substitutions that are so good, you'll wonder why you weren't eating them in the first place.

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Pizza

Substitute: Portobello mushrooms for pizza crust
Cut the gills out of the inside of the mushroom, says Ruben, "then place the mushroom on an oiled cookie sheet and bake for 5 to 10 minutes so it dries out slightly." Add tomato sauce, mozzarella, and pepperoni or other toppings and broil until the cheese begins to melt.
Carbs Eliminated: About 20 g per slice
The Taste: "Like pizza, but moister. Give me a fork!"

Hash Browns

Substitute: Squash for potatoes
Summer squash (the football-shaped yellow kind) tastes similar to potatoes when cooked—but has just a fraction of the carbs. Grate the squash, mix in an egg as binder, make patties, and fry them in olive oil.
Carbs Eliminated: About 15 grams (g) per hash-brown patty
The Taste: "Not as firm and crispy as regular hash browns, but the potato flavor is there."

Mash Potatoes

Substitute: Cauliflower for potatoes
One of Dr. Agatston's favorites: Steam some fresh or frozen cauliflower in the microwave. Then spray the cauliflower with butter substitute, add a little nonfat half-and-half substitute, and puree in a food processor or blender.
Carbs Eliminated: 30 g per cup
The Taste: "After a couple of bites, you forget it's not potatoes."

Lasagna

Substitute: Zucchini slices for noodles
Slice four to five medium-size zukes lengthwise into three-quarter-inch-thick strips, instructs Lise Battaglia, a New Jersey chef whose past clients include Jon Bon Jovi. Sprinkle Italian seasoning on the strips, place them in a single layer on a nonstick cookie sheet, and bake at 425 degrees F for 20 minutes. You want them firm, not crisp. "Then simply make the lasagna as you normally would, replacing lasagna noodles with the baked zucchini," she says.
Carbs Eliminated: 36 g per serving
The Taste: "Delicious. The zucchini provides texture that you don't get from noodles alone."

Spaghetti

Substitute: Spaghetti squash for spaghetti
A cooked spaghetti squash is like Mother Nature's automatic spaghetti maker—the flesh becomes noodle like strands. "All you have to do is cut the squash in half and remove the seeds. Then place each half—cut side down—on a plate with a quarter cup of water," says Elizabeth Perreault, a chef at Colorado's Culinary School of the Rockies. Nuke the squash for 10 minutes or until it's soft to the touch. Let it cool, then scrape out the "spaghetti" strands and top with pasta sauce and cheese.
Carbs Eliminated: 30 g per cup
The Taste: "Great. Spaghetti squash has exactly the same consistency as real pasta."

Pancakes

Substitute: Oatmeal and cottage cheese for pancake mix
Here's a can't-fail recipe from The South Beach Diet. Mix together half a cup of old-fashioned oatmeal, a quarter cup of low-fat cottage cheese, two eggs, and a dash each of vanilla extract, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Process in a blender until smooth. Cook the mixture like a regular pancake.
Carbs Eliminated: 45 g per pancake
The Taste: "With syrup, you could never tell the difference."

Macaroni and Cheese

Substitute: Diced vegetables for macaroni
Even instant mac and cheese can go lower-carb; use only half the pasta in the box and bulk it up with a couple of cups of frozen mixed vegetables, says Sandra Woodruff, R.D., coauthor of The Good Carb Cookbook.
Carbs Eliminated: 13 g per cup
The Taste: "I hate broccoli, but I wouldn't mind eating this."

Sandwiches

Substitute: Napa or Chinese cabbage for bread
Slap your turkey and Swiss onto a leaf of cabbage and roll it up. "I've made some great-tasting BLTs using cabbage instead of bread," Battaglia says. Dip the roll in low-fat mayonnaise or mustard.
Carbs Eliminated: 29 g per sandwich
The Taste: "Better than eating plain cold cuts."

6 Essential Flat-Belly Foods

Summer is coming up and if you are like me, you are already shopping for the perfect bathing suit to complement your new or improved body. Even if you've spent the past months dieting yourself into fit form, a few poor food choices each week can quickly add up to a juggernaut of jiggle well before Labor Day. The more of these bulge-battlers you eat, the better your chances of keeping those abs flat throughout this skin-baring season.





Quinoa

• Per ¼ cup:
  170 calories
  2.5 g fat
  7 g protein
  3 g fiber
  

  For starters, anytime you choose a whole-grain product over one made from nutrient-stripped white flour, you wage war against belly fat. Penn State researchers found that dieters who ate whole-grains lost twice as much belly fat as those who stuck to white-flour products—even though they'd consumed the same number of calories. What's more, quinoa contains twice the belly-filling protein as regular cereal grains, fewer glucose-raising carbohydrates, and even a handful of healthy fats. So start your day off with a cup of cooked quinoa combined with a ½ cup of milk and ½ cup of blueberries—microwave for 60 seconds, and you have a delicious (and slimming) alternative to your traditional oatmeal. Bob's Red Mill Organic Quinoa won "Best Grain" in Men's Health's Best Foods Awards 2009.

• Green Tea:

  0 calories

  Catechins, the powerful antioxidants found in green tea, are known to increase metabolism. A study by Japanese researchers found that participants who consumed 690 milligrams of catechins from green tea daily had significantly lower body mass indexes and smaller waist measurements than those in a control group. It's safe to say that green tea is one of the best beverages for your health—a stark contrast to any of these 20 unhealthiest drinks in America. Avoid those belt-buckling drinks at all costs.

• Kefir:
  

  Per cup:
  174 calories
  2 g fat
  14 g protein
  3 g fiber
  

  Think of kefir as drinkable yogurt, or an extra-thick, protein-packed smoothie. In either case, this delicious dairy product is a belly-blasting essential. Beyond the satiety-inducing protein, the probiotics in kefir may also speed weight loss. British scientists found that these active organisms boosted the breakdown of fat molecules in mice, preventing the rodents from gaining weight. The researchers still need to prove the finding in humans, but there's no danger in downing probiotic-packed products. We like Lifeway Lowfat Blueberry Kefir - it contains L. casei, the same probiotic used in the study.

• Avocado:
  

  Per avocado:
  322 calories
  29 g fat (4 g saturated, 20 g monounsaturated)
  13 g fiber
  4 g protein
  

  Never fear this full-fat Mediterranean-diet staple: It's teeming with healthy monounsaturated fats (also found in olive oil), which have been linked to lowered LDL cholesterol levels and weight loss. In fact, a recent longitudinal study published in The New England Journal of Medicine found that the healthy-fat Mediterranean diet was more effective than a diet that avoided fats altogether - so go ahead and indulge!

• Eggs:
  

  Per 1 large scrambled egg:
  102 calories
  7 g fat (2 g saturated)
  7 g protein
  

  A British study found that people who increased the percentage of protein-based calories in their diet burned 71 more calories a day (that's 7.4 pounds a year!). Jumpstart your metabolism as soon as you wake up with a protein-rich breakfast of scrambled eggs.

• Grapefruit:
  

  Per grapefruit:
  104 calories
  4 g fiber
  2 g protein
  

  A grapefruit a day in addition to your regular meals can speed weight loss. The fruit's acidity slows digestion, meaning it takes longer to move through your system, and you'll end up feeling fuller, and more satisfied, for longer. And the vitamin C-packed grapefruit works to lower cholesterol and decrease risk of stroke, heart disease, and some types of cancer.

9 Foods That Can Fool You

There are dozens of foods we fool ourselves into thinking are healthful when, in truth, they do nothing but pad our hips and arteries. Here are nine of the worst offenders on your grocery store shelves.

1. Yogurt. It starts out as good stuff. Fat aside, there's the calcium and protein you find in all milk products, along with probiotics, which make it easier to digest for those with lactose issues. The only problem is, straight yogurt can be pretty bitter, so manufacturers load the stuff with sugar to make it more palatable and masquerade those carbs as fruit. Have a look at most flavored yogurt, and you'll find the second ingredient to be sugar or high fructose corn syrup. 

   Solution: Buy plain yogurt and flavor it yourself.

2. Wheat Bread. If you're reading this, you probably know enough about nutrition to understand that whole-grain wheat is better for you than refined wheat. By keeping the bran and germ, you maintain the naturally occurring nutrients and fiber.

   But for some reason, manufacturers constantly come up with new chicanery to lead you back to the refined stuff. One of their latest tricks is to refer to refined flour as "wheat flour" because, obviously, it's made of wheat. But just because it's wheat-based doesn't mean it's not refined. The distracted shopper can mistake this label for "whole wheat flour" and throw it in his cart. Another loaf of cruddy, refined, fiberless bread has a new home.

   Solution: Slow down when you read the label. That word "whole" is an important one.

3. Chicken. Just because you made the switch from red meat doesn't mean you're in the clear. If you opt for dark meat—the wings, thighs, and legs—you're losing protein and gaining fat. Three ounces of raw chicken breast, meat only, is 93 calories, 19.5 grams of protein, and 1.2 grams of fat. Three ounces of dark meat, meat only, is 105 calories, 18 grams of protein, and 3.6 grams of fat. It doesn't seem like much, but it adds up.

   Solution: Go for the breast, and while you're at it, ditch the skin. It's nothing but fat.

4. Frozen or canned fruit. Any food swimming in juice or "light syrup" isn't going to work in your favor on the scale. Furthermore, most canned fruit is peeled, meaning you're being robbed of a valuable source of fiber.

   Frozen fruit is a little trickier. While freezing preserves the fruit itself, adding sugar during the freezing process preserves color and taste; so many store-bought frozen fruits add it in.

   Solution: Read that ingredients list! You want it to say fruit, water—and that's it.

5. Canned veggies. "What?" you declare. "There's light syrup in canned string beans, too?" No, actually, they add salt to preserve this produce. A half-cup serving of canned string beans has approximately 300 to 400 milligrams of sodium.

   Solution: Many companies offer "no salt added" options. If you can't find one to your liking, go frozen instead—no salt (or light syrup).

6. Peanut butter. Squish up peanuts, maybe add a little salt. How hard is it to make that taste good?

   Apparently, it's so incredibly difficult that many companies feel compelled to add sugar or high fructose corn syrup into the mix. Why? I do not know. Some manufacturers, such as Skippy®, are up front enough to admit this and call their product "Peanut Butter Spread," but many others still refer to their sugary concoction as good old "peanut butter."

   Solution: Read the label. (There's a theme emerging here.) Considering real peanut butter has one ingredient, two ingredients max, it shouldn't be too hard to figure it out.

7. Juice. It's important to remember that it's never going to be as healthy as whole fruit. And if you're trying to lose weight, it's a flat-out bad idea. First off, it's been stripped of fiber, so you absorb it faster, which makes it more likely to induce blood-sugar spikes. Secondly, you consume it faster and it's less filling, so you're more likely to drink more.

   Solution: If you must buy it, go fresh squeezed, but you're usually better off just skipping it entirely.

8. Canned soup. As is also the case with canned veggies, you're entering a sodium minefield. Half a cup of Campbell's^® Chicken Noodle Soup has 890 milligrams of sodium. That's 37 percent of the recommended daily allowance (RDA)*—and who eats half a cup?

   Solution: Read those labels carefully. Most companies make low-sodium versions.

By Dennis Faye